For a moment, I thought Mithras’s eyes flashed red.
But before I could tell, the Shadow Bringer sent us away in a flash of roiling darkness.
The Shadow Bringer and I stumbled back to Evernight.
“Hurry,” he murmured, grabbing my hand and leading us through a hall lit by floating candlesticks. “We need to reach my chambers before the Weavers interfere.”
Outside the corridor, the sounds of battle pressed in. Demons screamed as Weavers and their legions rose to meet them, the ringing of metal as it met claw and bone punctuated by a great, roaring wind and the crash of booming thunder.
It didn’t take long before I was thoroughly lost. Evernight was a maze teeming with hidden hallways and opulent rooms. It was magic in its purest form, beauty summoned by the wildest and most eccentric of imaginations—yet somehow also convoluted and strange. We turned a corner and began to ascend a glass staircase, narrowly avoiding dreamers and scholars as they raced around us.
We pressed on, looping around a window-lined hall and up a smaller, cruder staircase cut from stone. Unlike the rest of Evernight, this section felt private and secluded. There were no people, no sounds other than our own. Even the ruckus of battle had dampened to a dull rumble.
And then we were alone.
It was a dark, elegant room, furnished in blue silk, marble tile, and several sprawling rugs. There was a bed on one end, tucked into a corner by three large windows; a balcony; a plush seating area; and several candelabras emitting soft, blue-hued light. On the other side of the room were several bookshelves lined with ancient-looking texts. A fireplace was centered inside the longest bookshelf; it was cavernous and carved with figureheads of a dragon, a wolf, and a stag.
“Is this your room?”
A fine mist of shadow spread from his fingertips, sinking into the walls and settling underneath every stone, tile, and rug.A ward, I thought. Something to protect us—and to keep others out.
“It was.” He stood just inside the entryway, as if unsure of where to go next. “Though I was rarely here to enjoy it.”
I tried not to think about what, exactly, he did—or didn’t do—to enjoy the room.
“It’s still strange to see beds in the Dream Realm.”
“It is strange, isn’t it?” the Bringer mused. “Like the food and drink we consume, sleeping in the Realm is a functional comfort. At Evernight, sleeping slows the mind and allows the dreamer to easily transition back into reality. In Noctis. More talented dreamers can force themselves awake without sleeping, but that takes practice. Many scholars can’t do it with regularity.”
I recalled my early dreams in the Shadow Bringer’s castle. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t wake up on command. The demons in the woods had cornered me, so close that I could see the saliva dripping from their cracked lips, andstillI couldn’t wake.
He looked to the windows, almost as if he expected a demon to be peering in. “Sleep is a formality as much as it is a comfort. A reminder of what is… and what was.”
What is and what was.
And also a way to return to the Shadow Bringer’s castle. A way to discover our fates.
For a long while, the Bringer and I fought it. The raw, instinctual desire to sleep. To fall into a soft mattress, curl up in a blanket, and burrow deep into a pillow. To forget the day and begin anew. But slowly, our conversation faded. In the low candlelight, the Shadow Bringer’s eyes became dark, pooling shadows. He dragged his palms to his brow. Sat there for another moment, shoulders tight. Waiting. Then he slammed his fists into his knees and stood.
“We can’t keep this up, Bringer. If sleeping will help us travel back to the present, then we need to—”
The Bringer spun around, wild-eyed. “This is the third and final dream. What if we wake and this was all for nothing?” He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, but his chest continued to heave. “If we wake up in my castle, unable to walk free after everything—” He cut himself off. As though he had admitted something he didn’t want.
The pain in his eyes was too much.
“Perhaps it would help if you took off your armor,” I suggested. “You need to relax.”
The Bringer sighed, releasing some of his tension. The shadows in his eyes swam deep and thick.Like syrup, I thought. And then he conceded. His armor melted off his skin, replaced by a dark blue robe. My eye snagged on his chest. Followed it until his skin disappeared under a swath of silk. I wasn’t sure if he wore anything else underneath.
“If I’m to wear this, you must wear something more suitable, too, then.”
He tilted his head. Slowly, my Revel dress, still wet from the Nocturne and half-torn from our flight, shifted into a soft, flowing robe that mirrored his. His eyes melted as they beheld me. Turned raw and depthless—a testament to some unnamed emotion roiling underneath. Something primal, instinctive.
Something that spoke loudest in the shadows of the night.
I touched his hands, desperate to finally study them. His fingers,strong yet slender, curled around mine, tracing my wrists and brushing across my palms. His touch felt so unbelievably real.
“Why do you insist on doing that?” he asked, staring at my explorative fingers.
